Focus Group Discussion Guide
Focus Group Discussion Guide
Purpose of the Focus Group Discussion Guide
This focus group discussion guide was developed at the beginning of the product development cycle and was written to be exploratory in nature - to help us understand users' needs and pain points and brand perception.
Focus Group Discussion Guide
Introduction
10 MINUTES
The following is a guide that is meant to be flexible to the needs of the conversation.
Welcome
2 MINUTES
Good morning/afternoon/evening and welcome to our session.
My name is [facilitator’s name] and I am [credentials] at [company name]. I’d like to start off by thanking each of you for taking the time to participate in our focus group today.
We’ll be here for about 90 minutes. Don’t hesitate to stand up and stretch. Get a coffee, water, or snack whenever you please. Also, we ask that you please silence your smartphones or any other device you may have with you so that our discussion will not be interrupted.
Facilitator is to receive confirmation that all participants have silenced their smartphones.
Purpose
3 MINUTES
Our ultimate goal is to improve upon your city’s non-emergency reporting app to create a holistic, transformative solution for a world-class resident relationship management system. We want to ensure that the system provides convenient, user-friendly access for residents to connect, communicate, and collaborate with the City and its agencies.
We want to set higher standards for open, participatory government that is accessible to all residents and to transform the manner in which residents interact with their municipalities. Through this initiative, we want to help residents redefine their experience with the City government.
Our team has invited you here today to help us achieve these goals. We’re hoping to gain a deeper understanding of your related experiences and opinions to help us create a more ideal interaction for residents when using their city’s non-emergency reporting apps.
Logistics and Ground Rules
5 MINUTES
To allow our conversation to flow more freely, I’d like to go over some ground rules that will help us create a safe environment for everyone:
- One of the most important things to keep in mind is that we are not evaluating you, only trying to better understand your experiences and attitudes.
- Only one person speaks at a time. This is important as our goal is to make a written transcript of our conversations today. It is difficult to understand what is being said if there are multiple voices. Please avoid side conversations.
- We want to hear from everyone. I might ask you to specifically share if I haven’t heard from you in a while. But if you’re not comfortable answering, please feel free to say so.
- There are no right answers. It’s important for us to hear both sides – positive and negative – so please share honestly. Everyone’s ideas and experiences are valuable and you might not agree with others’ opinion, but please respect them!
- When you are telling me about an experience you’ve had, please go into as much detail as possible around how you felt, what you thought, what you did, and even what you wished could be different – sound okay?
- This is a confidential discussion and we will not include your names as we report our findings.
We want our conversation to be engaging and uninterrupted so, as we have mentioned, we will record audio of our interview and convert the audio to transcripts just to ensure we accurately capture all of your feedback. These recordings will be used for that purpose only. We will delete your recording once we have finished transcribing. Comments shared by you and other participants will be combined and paraphrased to share the themes that are raised. Do we have your permission to record?
In addition to the audio recording, we will have a note taker observing interactions to visually supplement the audio file.
Let’s take a minute now to fill out your consent forms. When you’ve finished reading and signing it, please hand it down to me.
Are there any questions before we start?
Great. I’m going to start recording now. By participating, you are consenting to the recording.
Questions
75 MINUTES
As the discussion begins, make sure to give people time to think before answering the questions and don't move too quickly.
Introduction of Participants
15 MINUTES
Before we start, I’d like to know a little about each of you.
- Please tell me your name and about your experience with using a smartphone. Are there any apps that you currently have on your smartphone that you like and often use?
- Are there any apps that you use but do not like? What are the apps? Please tell me what you don’t like about it (them).
Focused Questions
15 MINUTES
I’ve passed around some screenshots of the resident engagement app that is currently being used to report non-emergency issues in your city.
- Can you tell me about some of your more memorable experiences with the app? How, and for what, have you used the app?
- What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of the app? These could be about functionality, visual design, ease-of-use, specific content included or missing, etc.
- When thinking about using the app, what affects your decision to actually use it or not?
Card Sort
35 MINUTES
We would like your help sorting popular reported issues in the City App and naming the categories these issues live under in the app.
Show the participant the online card sort.
Please group the cards in ways that make sense to you. It is okay to change your mind as you work. It would be helpful if you spoke out loud while you group the cards together. This will help us understand your thoughts, rationale, and frustrations.
When you are done grouping, please create a category name.
Debrief the participant and ask them to explain the rationale behind the groups they created.
- Were any items especially easy or difficult to place?
- Did any items seem to belong in two or more groups?
- What thoughts do you have about the items left unsorted (if any)?
- As you think about your own experiences with your app, are there any missing issues from our list?
- Are there any issues you’d like to be able to report but are not currently able to?
Wrap-up Questions
10 MINUTES
- Are there any aspects of the app or your experience with it that we did not discuss that you’d like to share?
- Beyond changing specific functionality or content, how could your city improve your experience with the app? Are online tours or tutoring necessary? Mailings with notifications of updates or tips and tricks?
Closing
5 MINUTES
Last Remarks
3 MINUTES
Are there any other questions or concerns?
Great. I’m going to stop the recording now.
Thank You & Next Steps
2 MINUTES
Thank you for taking the time to meet today and share your experiences. As we mentioned, your feedback is informing a larger effort to enhance reporting methods for non-emergency requests to city municipalities.
The next step in this process is continuing these focus groups – we will aggregate what we’ve heard, keeping all insights anonymous, and define the key themes and ways to evolve city resident engagement mobile applications.
Need more detail?
Project Background & Objectives
311* service-request systems represent one of the most significant links between residents and their city government. These systems receive millions of non-emergency requests annually. With rising numbers of users, positive customer experiences are more difficult to sustain and have, in fact, often been found to be lacking as user needs continue to evolve.
Many cities have created 311 systems that provide the public with quick and easy access to a centralized platform for government services and information. Each day, cities receive thousands of requests related to several hundred types of non-emergency services, including noise complaints, plumbing issues, and illegally parked cars. These requests are received by the 311 employees and forwarded to the relevant government agencies such as the police, buildings, or transportation. The expectation (intended experience) is for the agency to respond to the request, address it, and then close it while keeping the reporter (resident user) updated throughout the process.
311 service request systems represent one of the most significant links between citizens and city government. These systems receive millions of non-emergency requests annually. With rising numbers of users, positive customer experiences are more difficult to sustain and have, in fact, often been found to be lacking as user needs continue to evolve.
Our research objective was to ensure that 311 apps address current issues, consistently provide excellent customer service, and raise awareness and app downloads among non-users. The 311 apps should be the one-stop for all non-emergency service and information requests between residents and their municipalities.
This study's output was used to inform our recommendations of specific interface improvements that can be made to increase user engagement and better provide a seamless experience from reported issue opening to closing.
*All cities independently name this non-emergency request system (eg, Ann Arbor, MI, See Click Fix; Chicago, IL, CHI 311; San Francisco, CA, SF311; New York, NY, NYC 311). For the purposes of this report, we will broadly refer to all of these apps as “311.”